Mayor breed hello, everybody. Im london breed. Im mayor of the city and county of San Francisco, and i am so excited to be here today. We all know that there is a real crisis in our city, and i know that we hear that word used on a regular basis. But in this particular case what we see happening with those who are struggling with Mental Illness and Substance Use disorder and chronic homelessness is something that we see every day and we need to take aggressive action to address that issue. I am standing here with supervisor Hillary Ronen and mandelman to announce that even though we have had two competing measures, we have come together to do what is in the best interest of this city to introduce today at the board of supervisors a compromise that is going to help us address the most significant problem in our city. [ applause ]. Mayor breed i not only want to thank the supervisors, but i wanted to thank lou girardo. You remember lou has someone who worked with the board of supervisors back in 2012 and 2013 to help with a compromise for cpmc and the Community Benefits and the work that they needed to do to support San Francisco. Hes been an incredible advocate on this issue and were grateful for the work that he has done to bring us to this place. [ applause ]. Mayor breed and i want to thank the Labor Council. Kim taveloni is here representing the Labor Council. Thank you so much. Our Community Partners and advocates and so many people who care so deeply about this issue. You know, i think we need to recognize that everyone that is here today wants our city to get to a better place. We may have differences of opinion of how we get there, but we know that that is at the forefront of what we have to do as a city if we are going to make sure that we help those are who are most in need. So everyone recognizes the importance of coming together today to do just that. I am so proud to be standing here to talk just a little bit about where our system is and where our system needs to go. In fact, San Francisco does an incredible job. We serve over 30,000 people in our Behavioral Health system. But in that 30,000, we know that there are 4,000 that are dual diagnosed and are struggling with homelessness and we know that we have to do better. This is why so many people are frustrated. Not only the people working in our Public Health system, but people who are the ones who are sadly out there and need our assistance and need us to do better. Today with this compromise we are proposing to do better. Mental health s. F. Is going to be a program that is going to be settled at the board of supervisors with a number of compromises to make the right kinds of investments in the people that serve those with Behavioral Health challenges and expanding our Mental Health beds and to work with the community to get Community Input on changes and making sure that we are collaborating every step of the way. And let me be clear, this will be an expensive program and we will know it. I have made a commitment along with the members of the board of supervisors to make sure that we are making better investments because it is necessary. Those investments will be increasing the pay of some of the employees that are working in this system. It will be loan forgiveness and other programs that we need to do to incentivize people to want to work in this industry and go to city. It will be to make sure that we expand the number of beds. It will be to make sure that we have an Advisory Committee of people who work in this industry to help advise on policies so that when we make decisions, were not doing those decisions in isolation. We are working with the Behavioral Health system, and as i said time and time again there is a real issue around equity. Around those 4,000 people that we know we are not serving properly, 35 of them are africanamerican. We need to call out the injustices in these systems and make deliberate investments in targeting the population that continue to get left out when we propose new solutions to support the communities that we know are most vulnerable. So we are going to be making deliberate investments around making sure that africanamericans are supported as we move this process forward. [ applause ]. Mayor breed i want to thank dr. Nigusse bland and dr. Colfax because you have been doing the difficult work of managing the system with the resources that you have and not necessarily getting the support that you need to do it and that change starts today. That change wont happen overnight. We will be working towards making this a more justice, equitable, fair system using data, using data and resources, reforming our business tax system that were working on to identify new revenues and making the hard decisions to revise our happy plan so that we can identify the Capital Resources needed. Although we were looking at years later Public Health bond on the ballot, i have already sent a letter along with support from the supervisors to look at a way in which we can move that Public Health bond to november of next year so that we can expand our beds and we can acquire board and care facilities, and we can continue to make sure that we not only have the people in terms of resources, but we have the capital necessary to expand outthis out this system. Now, i know that time and time again people talked about what happened in the 1980s when our city was faced with a very still crisis, when we were faced with the aids crisis in our city, and how we were not supported by the federal government and so many people came together and San Francisco and San Francisco general in particular was the leader in the fight to really focus on addressing the challenges with aids and h. I. V. In our city. For the first time this year, we have less than a hundred new diagnosed h. I. V. Patients in San Francisco, which is truly historic. [ applause ]. Mayor breed that came with resources and us coming together and bold policy changes. Thats what were doing today. I am so excited for the future of Mental Health in San Francisco because i know that this is the right way to do it. This is the right approach to develop the resources and make the kinds of changes that will help the people that we know need it the most. We have to start looking at Mental Health in a whole other way than we did in the past, because when you think about it, we have hospitals that deal with physical issues, right . Cancer and if you break your arm or something that you can feel, but what happens when someone is a schizophrenic . What happens when someone develops dementia or these other things. What happens when we are helping those people and meeting them where they are . This is where we need to go as a city and a country. Im proud to be here to support Mental Health s. F. And achieving that goal with the members of the board of supervisors. [ applause ]. Mayor breed and i want to thank supervisor Hillary Ronen and supervisor Matthew Haney again for bringing great leaders in this process. I really, really want to thank supervisor rafael mandelman. We are going to Work Together to get this done. So without further ado at this time, id like to welcome to the podium supervisor Hillary Ronen. [ applause ]. Thank you so much, madam mayor. Matt and i are so happy to be leading on this issue together. Yes, we did it. We came together and were looking forward to continue with the bond to lead and fix this crisis in our streets. Before i make this comment, i want to acknowledge two people who changed their schedule to be here and might have to leave early, our null elected public defender and district attorney, minora aju and bodeen. [ applause ]. They were with us when we announced Mental Health s. F. And they are with us when were announcing its introduction into law in its final form today. Thank you for being with us every single step of the way. We really appreciate you and are so excited for your leadership. Everyone, we just created the first universal Mental Health and Substance Abuse system in the country. [ applause ]. If you are homelessness, uninsured, or on mediccal, we will treat you. We will create a plan and a path towards a stable and healthy life and guide you to stay on that path. If you have Health Insurance but you are not getting the care that you need or deserve, we will stand beside you and we will advocate with your provider until you get the care that you are legally entitled to. If we see any patterns of illegal behavior on behalf of private insurance companies, we will partner with our City Attorneys Office and we will hold those private companies accountable. [ applause ]. Once Mental Health s. F. Is fully up and running, no one in San Francisco has to stand alone when they are battling these diseases of the mind. San franciscans, if you see someone suffer secretarygeneral on the street with Mental Illness or drug addiction, youre no longer going to have to walk by and feel guilty because you didnt know how to help them, youre no longer going to have to debate with yourself if you should call the police, is that a good or bad thing, you will have a 24hour, sevendayaweek team of mobile clinicians that will come out and assist that individual at any time. [ applause ]. Guess what . When General HospitalPsych Emergency Services is on diversion, there is a new place to go, its called the Mental Health s. F. Service center. It will be open also 24 hours a day, seven days a week. This mobile team will have a place to take people who will get Immediate Care from psychiatrists and psych nurses and social workers. Guess what . Were no longer going to waste money, time, and the good will of patients and the rest of us, quite frankly, by watching people cycle from the streets to Psych Emergency Services and residential treatment, and right back out on the street where it is almost impossible to get better because were going to start the office of coordinated care that are going to help people get on a path to recovery and is going to expand services to ensure that there is availability at all level of treatment, including permanent, Supportive Housing. [ applause ]. Mental health s. F. Is visionary, universal, bold, comple complete. Ladies and gentlemen, it is soon to be the law of San Francisco. I want to join the mayor in a few thank yous especially to lou girardo who got us talking again and to the fabulous place we are today. I want to thank matt haney, my partner in health every step of the way. It is a pleasure working with you and it is so fun to team up. I want to thank you to the Mental Health committee because this was a team effort. We had incredibly brilliant representatives writing this law with us and serving the bridge between the frontline medical workers, patients, and families, and our offices sciu 21. The National Union of healthcare workers. [ applause ]. Progress foundation. The treatment on demand coalition. And phil tings office who has been there from day one and well hear from him in a moment. I want to thank our incredibly fabulous staff. We have been living and breathing Mental Health s. F. For a year. Please give a hand to my chief of staff. So my form er aide, ms. Morales and abigail moriante. And the campaign team. And to nate albie our special strategist. And finally i wanted to thank all the supervisors who were really there with us from the beginning, all of our cosponsors, supervisors yee, peskin, and walton and mar who didnt waiver and had our backs. They were along there right by our sides and we love you for it. Finally, i want to thank all of the Frontline Health workers, including the peer workers, social workers, the therapists, psychiatrists, many of who i see in the audience who do the most incredible and amazing work every day and dont get nearly enough appreciation, we see you and appreciate you and love you and we hope this is going to make your work more exciting and successful. Finally, i wanted to thank the mayor and the mayors staff who we started off with a different vision, but we did that hard work and we sat down. Especially dr. Colfa scprks colfax and dr. Bland. Thank you, ms. Mayor. Can you give a big round of plaza to supervisor Matthew Haney. Thank you. I want to echo all of those thank yous that you already heard from supervisor ronen, but theres one that we left out which is supervisor Hillary Ronen, who did incredible and tremendous work. Literally when i got elected, she pulled me in and asked, what do you think about doing a universal Mental Health care program for San Francisco. I said i just got here. How does that work . We brought in an incredible coalition of frontline workers. Everyone who was able to help us draft this legislation. So many folks with direct experience working in this system helped us draft what is in front of us today. I want to say this one more time which is that Mental Health s. F. Will make San Francisco the first city in the country to provide universal access to coordinated Mental Health care and Substance Use treatment. That is a huge accomplishment. What we know is that there is so many people in our communities, many of whom are living on the streets, others of who are suffering quietly who are not receiving the care that they need. Our system does amazing work, but were not doing enough to recognize that Mental Health is recognized as a right in our city. If you are sick and have someone you need to talk to, you need to have a system that actually takes care of you, that coordinates your care, and that doesnt turn you away. Mental health s. F. Will create a 24 7 Mental HealthServices Center where anyone can go for care. We will have intensive Case Management and an office of care coordination so people do not fall through the cracks. We will have a responsive stream so that responders are trained clinicians. I want to echo and shout out the staff that are here because our jails right now should not be the place where people are getting Mental Health care. We need to have actual hospitals and Community Care and Supportive Housing where people are getting treatment. So our excitement to partner with the two of you and to create a system that works is so exciting. Were going to expand our system so were not putting people out on the street because there is not a bed available. We need to have a private service for a system that supports people. People are abandoned on our streets, cycling in and out of our Emergency Rooms looking for residences. We need a system that looks out for them, takes care of them, and has a place for them to go to get the care they deserve. I want to give a huge, huge thank you to mayor breed and her team, dr. Colfax and dr. Bland. This is the leadership that our residents are demanding. This is the leadership where we Work Together and we work out our differences, but we also make sure that were leading in a bold and a truly San Francisco way. We are done with the incrementalism. We are done with the tinkering. We need big changes and we need everyone to receive care. I want to recognize abbey from my chief of staff here. She has been working so hard. And thank you to everyone here with us, we could not have done this without all of you. Thank you. [ applause ]. Sometimes our Assembly Members go up to sacramento and forget about these members. Not phil tang. He has been with us dedicating his time and staff. I am so excited to be here today because its just an acknowledgement of San Francisco is that when we come together, we can solve major issues. Today is a day when we can all celebrate where we had a variety of concerns, real concerns about how do we implement Mental Health s. F. , how do we make this program a reality, real issues about how do we offer this in a universal way, how do we make sure that those who need it get this opportunity. Im so proud of our city that we were able to come together, come together as a unif